Deadly Christmas Pretense. Dana Mentink

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СКАЧАТЬ underlying the jovial teasing that made him think it wasn’t a routine situation at the Roughwater Lodge she managed. Prickles danced across the back of his neck. Was something wrong with his baby sister? It was not that long ago, while he was still deployed, that her best friend had been murdered on the Lodge property. Her scars ran deep and raw after the senseless tragedy. His protective instincts buzzed. “What’s—?”

      “Stop worrying. It’s nothing I can’t handle, big brother. Go play with your dog.” She hung up.

      He stared at his phone. Since his father train-wrecked their lives when Liam was a kid, it had been his number one job to care for Helen. Neither his past service as a Green Beret nor his current duties as a cowboy on the sprawling Roughwater Ranch diverted him from tending to her, whether or not she welcomed his assistance.

      He heard only a dull hum in his left ear, courtesy of the otosclerosis that had wrecked his hearing and forced him out of military service. He could still get along with a hearing aid in the other, and he prayed every night that God would preserve that sliver of precious auditory function. He jammed the phone into his pocket.

      The distant sound of the nine o’clock train whispered again through the December night and he thought with a pang of Tammy, the woman with whom he’d broken up eight months before. He remembered when they’d first started dating, he’d taken her for a ride on that historic steam train and she’d gone pink-cheeked with joy. Dark-haired, boisterous, impulsive Tammy.

      Loneliness churned his stomach.

      He felt rather than heard the movement behind him. Whirling around, hand on the rifle secured to his saddle, he found Jingles, tongue lolling, one ear up and one down, staring at him with that look of unadulterated adoration that made Liam squirm.

      He gaped. “What are you doin’ here? I put you out with the respectable herding dogs behind the bunkhouse. Haven’t you caused enough trouble for one day?”

      Jingles wagged his crooked tail, staring unblinkingly with those inscrutable amber eyes.

      Liam folded his arms. “You busted out and followed me, didn’tcha? This has got to stop, dog.”

      The dog sat, front feet turned outward in that odd pigeon-toed way of his, tail scuffing the grass. “Jingles—” Liam broke off abruptly as he heard the roar of an engine. The vibrations under his feet told him more than his ears. The car was coming too fast along the winding road.

      He unlatched the gate and stepped through to get a closer look, Jingles glued to his boot heels.

      The car came around the bend, a sleek green bullet. Everything twisted up inside him. He knew that car, a sweet 1972 Chevy Corvette that made his mouth water. Further, he knew the driver, the woman who’d left him and the little town of Driftwood without a backward glance. Tammy Lofton. It could be no one else.

      He tracked her progress. Too fast, at the outer edge of control. She was always a bit of a lead foot, but why would she be driving like that? Why here? Now?

      Then he saw the second car—dark, also moving rapidly—closing the gap.

      “What in the world?” he said aloud, earning an answering yip from the dog he’d temporarily forgotten about. The second fact dropped into his mind, hard and sharp like a collar awl he used for making saddles. The train crossing was two miles ahead. He did the mental math calculations: Tammy’s speed, her pursuer, the train. No time to work out much of a plan.

      “Stay here,” he shouted to Jingles, leaping onto his horse and urging Streak into a gallop toward the crossing. It took a few minutes of hard riding and a sneaky shortcut to catch up with her, Streak flying along the grassy field, above and parallel to her car.

      “Tammy!” he hollered. “Stop!”

      She was staring out the front window, hair concealing her profile, but the body language read fear, terror even.

      “Stop the car,” he shouted as loudly as he could manage. “Train!”

      But still she drove on, clutching the wheel as the other driver flew around the turn behind her.

      Maggie’s nerves were screaming as she tried to escape her pursuer, momentarily distracted by a galloping horseman who appeared to be trying to keep pace with her. “One problem at a time,” she ground out through gritted teeth. The cowboy would have to wait. The horseman peeled off abruptly and she breathed a smidgen easier.

      Glancing at the car behind her, she was thrilled when it dropped back several yards. She let out a shaky breath. Good, she thought, breathing slowing a notch. Go ahead and give up.

      Instead he accelerated and rammed her. The Vette shimmied and slid. She screamed, fingers clawing the wheel for control. He was dropping back again and this time she wasn’t about to let him regain the advantage.

      The Corvette was practically flying when, without warning, a man leaped onto the road twenty yards ahead. Strangely backlit by the moonlight, she could just make out the silhouette of the horseman who’d been tracking her. He must have taken a detour to cut her off. He was standing on the road, a big guy in a cowboy hat, broad-shouldered, arms held up in warning, like something out of a dream.

      “Get out of the way!” she shrieked.

      He waved one hand and fired a rifle she hadn’t noticed into the air. The shot cracked through the night. She had no choice but to jerk the Corvette around in a wide, bumping arc to avoid running him down. The tires jostled and jumped, taking her off the road. The wheels spun fruitlessly on the frosted grass and she struggled to control the bucking steering wheel. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the cowboy, still waving frantically.

      What was he doing? Finally the piercing noise and commotion ahead sank into her panicked brain. The clang of signals and flash of lights told her the sickening truth. She was about to drive directly into the path of an oncoming train. She slammed on the brakes but the speed was too much. The whistle pierced the night like a shriek as the Corvette skidded through the signal light, heading straight for the tracks.

      She wrenched the wheel and the car whirled in circles, dizzying her. For one heart-stopping moment, she thought her vehicle would hurtle onto the tracks, but it halted some ten feet back, illuminated by the red flashing train lights.

      The dark sedan that had been pursuing her came to a sudden stop in a shower of loose rocks, engine idling. She sat, panting, shaking convulsively. In the rearview she saw the cowboy sprint up to her pursuer’s car, shouting something. Paralysis stole her ability to move. What should she do? At least one of her car’s tires was shredded; she’d heard it explode. Get out and run away from her pursuer and the cowboy? Or stay until the showdown behind her was finished? Should she take her chances with the darkness or the cowboy?

       Tammy, what kind of a mess have you gotten us into this time?

      She shoved open the door and stepped into a deep rut that sent her to one knee. The cold pierced her body but it hardly registered past the fear. The Corvette had spun and come to a halt facing her pursuer, his headlights blinding her.

      “Step away from the car,” a voice shouted. It was low and husky. Angry. The cowboy. It had to be. Was he shouting at her? She squatted next to the open driver’s-side door. The Vette had skidded to a stop on a grassy clearing. The slight СКАЧАТЬ